Shutdown's end lets couple wed at N.J. lighthouse

Government shutdown threatens couple's dream wedding, and their weekend tradition. Couple was able to marry at the Sandy Hook lighthouse on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, becoming the first wedding to occur inside the lighthouse.
Dustin Racioppi, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

SANDY HOOK, N.J. -- Nothing could keep the couple from the lighthouse.

They fell in love within its drafty cupola one winter day two years ago, and for nearly every weekend since, the whitewashed beacon at the tip of Sandy Hook, N.J., became their reliable idyll, a second home to theirs along the Delaware River.

It was without fail: Their truck would be packed with buckets and rafts and be on the road by 8.

When Superstorm Sandy strafed the narrow barrier with a historic surge, the couple still came, even if it was to shovel sand rather than play in it.

They loved the lighthouse so much they decided they wanted to be the first ones in its 249 years to get married inside of it.

And then, three weeks ago, the government shut down. A small group of angry men in suits had washed out their plans.

“It was absolutely sickening. This was our dream.”

Heather Rusczyk, on learning of the government shutdown

Nothing could replace the lighthouse.

Heather Rusczyk and her two sons, Samson, 11, and Simon, 8, had never been anywhere like it.

Rusczyk, a gardener who was freshly divorced, met Eric Decibus, a home improvement contractor also newly divorced, right after Tropical Storm Irene hit New Jersey in 2011. She was cleaning his neighbor's yard in Lambertville, N.J., and Decibus asked if she could clean his yard, too. She did.

"I said, 'I'm going to have to start dumping my neighbors' garbage all over my yard to get you to come back.' " said Decibus, 46.

He took a more sanitary tack instead. He proposed that he, Rusczyk and her two boys take a day trip to Sandy Hook. He told them they could play at the beach and see rockets at Fort Hancock.

He saved the best part for last. They took the spiral steel stairs nearly 100 feet up and stood in the cupola where the beacon shoots light across the Lower New York Bay.

"They were just blown away," Decibus said. "It was like their castle."

Rusczyk, 42, said she looked at Decibus "and said under my breath 'I want to marry you.' "

Their second date was at the lighthouse. Then it became standard. Decibus, Rusczyk and the boys visited Sandy Hook nearly every weekend since then. They developed routines. They rode bicycles and collected seashells. They climbed the steel steps of the lighthouse. Then they drove back home to Lambertville, laid out their seashells and knocked the sand from their shoes into a bucket.

"We looked like beach people, living on the Delaware," Decibus said.

After Superstorm Sandy hit and paralyzed Sandy Hook, Decibus contacted a friend to see whether there was anything he could do to help. His friend linked him with the National Park Service, which controls most of the barrier. It accepted the offer. For every weekend until February, Decibus and Rusczyk shoveled sand while the boys explored the area.

This past summer, Decibus and Rusczyk casually floated the idea of marriage.

"She said, 'Let's do it, but I want to be married at the lighthouse, like I said,' " Decibus recalled.

Most people who get married on Sandy Hook do so at a small chapel. A wedding in the lighthouse had never been done before, and for good reason. A large Fresnel lens occupies most of the space at the top of the lighthouse. It is ringed by a steel platform that can fit, at most, 8 people at one time, said Daphne Yun, a spokeswoman for Gateway National Recreation Area.

For a wedding, the park requires a special use permit, for $100, she said. It also requires a liability insurance policy, Decibus said, for $3 million. He got both.

“She said, 'Let's do it, but I want to be married at the lighthouse, like I said.' ”

Eric Decibus, on their marriage talk

The couple set the wedding for Friday, Oct. 18, and planned it all out.

On Oct. 1, Decibus received an e-mail saying that Congress was gridlocked on spending and the government was shutting down. Sandy Hook is mostly federally controlled land, so the wedding was off.

"It was absolutely sickening," Rusczyk said. "This was our dream."

They held out hope that a resolution would come. But seeing no progress in Washington, they started piecing together Plan B.

Eric Decibus and Heather Rusczyk were able to have their wedding ceremony at the Sandy Hook Lighthouse on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, after the federal government shutdown ended.(Photo: Mike McLaughlin, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press)

They contacted the operators of the Twin Lights, the double-lighthouse located across the bay in Highlands, which said they could accommodate a wedding. It wasn't the lighthouse where they fell in love, but it was a lighthouse, and it was close, and it was flexible. They adjusted their plans.

On Wednesday night, an e-mail arrived in Decibus' inbox. The subject line was "YES!!" Congress had come to an agreement and the shutdown was over. On Thursday morning, it was confirmed: Decibus and Rusczyk could be married in the lighthouse the next day, if they still wanted.

They wanted.

Rusczyk said she spent the rest of the day crying.

The couple showed up on Friday around 5, just about the time the sun starts dipping below the hills across the bay. Decibus wore a standard black tuxedo and a childish grin. Rusczyk, who said she does not normally wear dresses, wore a form-fitting satin and lace white gown that she ordered online. They both wore cowboy boots. They climbed the stairs of the lighthouse and exchanged vows at the top.

For the occasion, they also brought along a bucket of seashells they had collected from Sandy Hook the last two years, as well as glasses of sand they had shaken from their shoes.

They took the boys' hands and walked toward the bayside, where the light spilled across the grass and slowly retreated for the night.